124 Transactions British Mycological Society. 



on Australian Fungi, No. 2/ August, 1915, by Dr. Cleland 

 and Edwin Cheel. We suspected it from the first, but Professor 

 Fetch maintained that Lysiirus Gardneri had its arms joined 

 by a membrane at the apices, which was not the case as far as 

 known in the other species. Messrs. Cleland and Cheel have 

 satisfactorily explained this. In Australia, while the arms are 

 usually free, they are sometimes 'united at the apex by a 

 thin membrane which gives the specimen a somewhat clathrate 

 appearance.' The figure 836 which we produce from Messrs. 

 Cleland and Cheel presents the top of a young specimen with 

 two of the arms joined. Mr. Brittlebank's sketch (Fig. 835) 

 shows the arms connivent, as they are at first. They after- 

 wards sprea,d out, as shown in the fine photograph by Hollis 

 Webster, published in Mycological Notes, p. 513. 



"There is a long story connected with the species. First 

 it was sent Berkeley from Ceylon and named Lysurtts Gardneri. 

 It is rare in Ceylon, but recently collected by Professor Fetch. 

 One collection reached Kew from Australia (Bailey, Brisbane 

 River) which Cooke named Lysurus anstraliensis, and gave in 

 the Handbook a most inaccurate and exaggerated drawing of 

 it. It seems to not be common in Australia, though there are 

 twelve collections in the National Herbarium, Sydney. Fischer 

 gives a very good figure of it from Argentina under the name 

 Lysurus Claraziamis. The European and American history 

 is all recent, for it is supposed to be introduced into both these 

 countries. With us it was first collected at East Galway, New 

 York, by Professor Burt in 1893. He published it as Anthurus 

 horealis under a misconception of the genus Anthurus. A few 

 stations were added from time to time (Cfr. Myc. Notes, 

 pp. 183, 219, and 515), and of late years it is sometimes found 

 in abundance. It seems to grow where sod has been turned 

 and rotted. In Europe it has been collected once in Germany, 

 and twice in England (Cfr. Syn. Phalloids, p. 40), no doubt 

 adventitious. The native home of the species is probably the 

 East (Ceylon and Australia). Cleland and Cheel consider that 

 Midimis pentagonus (Syn. Phalloids, Fig. 28) is the same plant. 

 I examined the specimens at Kew, and I thought the arms were 

 consolidated in one piece. If they separate, then I think it 

 is. Lysurus Mokusin of China, which differs from Lysurus 

 Gardneri in having an angular, fluted stem. Fetch in his 

 latest work insisted that the Ceylonese plant and Australian 

 are not the same." 



The opinions expressed by the different mycologists who have 

 dealt with Lysurus Gardneri from Ceylon and Lysurus aus- 

 traliensis from Australia have, of course, been based on drawings 

 and dried specimens, and they are the best possible on that 



